Watch Sneak Preview of FFRF TV commercial starring Julia Sweeney

Watch Sneak Preview of FFRF TV commercial starring Julia Sweeney

Julia Sweeney, one of America’s most famous former Catholics as actress and playwright of “Letting Go of God,” stars in a new TV and radio ad just produced by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

The commercial counters the anti-contraceptive campaign by Roman Catholic Bishops. The wealthy U.S. Catholic Church has pledged to spend multimillions in a PR blitz leading up to July 4th to overturn the Obama Administration’s contraceptive health insurance mandate.

“This is why FFRF exists — to ensure that religious dogma is not enshrined into our secular laws, to ensure that humanity is placed above dogma and that dogma is not allowed to trump personal conscience and civil liberties,” noted Dan Barker, FFRF co-president.

In the ad, Julia (who once portrayed a nun in some episodes of “Sex and the City”) is sitting at her office with figurines of nuns in the background. A red-skirted bishop’s figure is reflected in the mirror. In her 30-second spot, she says:

Hi, I’m Julia Sweeney, and I’m a cultural Catholic. I am no longer a believer and I even wrote a play about it called “Letting Go of God.” But I wanted to let you know that right now Catholic Bishops are framing their opposition to contraceptive coverage as a religious freedom issue. But the real threat to freedom is the Bishops, who want to be free to force their dogma on people who don’t want it. Please join the Freedom From Religion Foundation and help keep church and state separate. [FFRF’s name, toll-free number and website are displayed throughout the ad.]

A version of the ad starts next week as a radio commercial on the Randi Rhodes Show, where it will run daily June 11-24.